"Some of 'em. Most of them were prostitutes."

Hully, not sure his father was serious, looked at him, saying, "What? Really?"

But O. B.'s expression was matter-of-fact; so was his tone. "Sure. And that's the only thing that makes me think Frank Teske might not be entirely nuts."

"Why is that?"

"Well, when the prostitutes around a military base panic, and start headin' for the mainland, you gotta wonder-who is more sensitive to the military mind than a hooker?"

They were rambling across a long wooden bridge over the Ala Moana Canal, which emptied the city's waste water into the ocean. Their lodgings would be coming up soon, and when the wind blew from the south, no one went down to the hotel's beach to swim-at such times O. B. tended to refer to the otherwise comfortable Niumalu Hotel as "Hovel-on-Sewer."

Soon they were passing what appeared to be an old Southern mansion set stylishly among the lush shrubbery; but it was actually a Japanese teahouse called Ikesu Villa.

“Take that place," O. B. said with a nod. "It looks American, but it's Japanese through and through."

Shortly after, at a fork in the road, Hully's father turned right, into that part of Waikiki which still most nearly remained in its native state.

"You know," O. B. said reflectively, the antagonism suddenly gone from his voice, "the funny thing is… this is as close as I've ever been to war. I've always been the kind of guy who's late for the thrill-I always seem to get to the fire after it's out."

Hully took a long sideways look at his rugged, bronzed fattier-a man's man who had been a cowboy and a gold miner, who had served the United States Cavalry in Arizona, who had sailed the Panama Canal. But who-as the creator of Tarzan-had never been to Africa, and not so long ago, when MGM announced its next Weissmuller epic would be shot on the Dark Continent, Hully's pop had been invited to accompany the expedition… only the war in Europe and Africa had changed all that. Africa was off.